Chapter 840: Ragnora Vindictus Titanborn

Julie nodded. "The army consisted of around a thousand warriors—"

"Wait." Cassius interrupted, genuinely surprised. "A thousand? I thought the Holy Guard only had three hundred knights."

"The Holy Guard does." Julie confirmed. "But the Blood and Iron Brigade is much larger. A thousand soldiers, all of them battle-hardened veterans from families who have been fighting for generations."

"And among them, there were certain families who had been ruling and protecting the mines for so long that they had become the de facto leaders. Generation after generation, they would take turns commanding the army, with the most capable one taking the crown."

"Usually, each era produced one clearly superior warrior who would naturally rise above the rest."

"But not this generation." Aisha said, her ears drooping slightly. "This generation was cursed with abundance. Every family produced an exceptional candidate. Every single one of them was strong enough, smart enough, proud enough to lead."

"And none of them would bow to another. Their egos were too vast, their pride too deeply rooted. They’d rather tear the army apart than kneel."

"Skirmishes broke out within the ranks." Julie added quietly. "Duels over insults. Factions forming and dissolving. The army that was supposed to defend the mines was too busy fighting itself."

"The Patriarch knew it was only a matter of time before an outside enemy exploited the division and destroyed everything."

"Then Big Sis arrived." Aisha’s eyes blazed to life again. "Your father announced her as the new commander. He gave his verdict, and he expected it to be followed."

Cassius let out a dry chuckle. "I’m guessing they didn’t accept it gracefully."

Julie’s laugh was sharp and humorless. "When your father made the announcement, the entire camp exploded. You could hear the roaring and cussing from miles away outside the valley!"

"These veterans had been bickering for years over who was worthy to lead them, and suddenly the Patriarch walks in with some young, unknown girl they’d never seen before and tells them, ’She’s your boss now. Deal with it.’"

"They were furious." Aisha continued, shaking her head. "They tore her apart verbally."

"First off, she was way too young—most of the squad leaders had been killing bandits since before she was born."

"Second, she was a woman, and those old-school battle clans were fiercely patriarchal back then."

"And third..." Julie glanced at Cassius with a subtle smile. "Her race."

Cassius stopped spinning in his chair, his interest piqued.

"Her race? Is she not human? I just assumed she was."

"Nope!" Skadi said proudly, puffing out her chest. "Big Sis is a demi-human like me! She belongs to the Ogre race!"

Cassius raised both eyebrows in genuine surprise.

"An Ogre?"

He hummed thoughtfully, picturing the rare, imposing demi-human subspecies known for their massive frames, brute force, and terrifying combat instinct.

"Well...Ogres are naturally born war machines. Even if she was young, wouldn’t her raw strength command at least some baseline respect?"

Aisha scoffed softly, picking up a silver paperweight from Cassius’s desk and rolling it between her fingers.

"In a straight fistfight, sure. But most noble houses and human military commanders view Ogres as mindless barbarians. They think Ogres are great for swinging heavy clubs and smashing walls, but totally incapable of complex thought."

"Exactly." Julie agreed and logically explained, "Leading a thousand elite troops isn’t just about punching hard. It’s logistics, grand strategy, troop deployment, supply lines, and tactical maneuvering."

"Because of this, the veteran leaders laughed in her face." She sighed heavily. "They said putting an Ogre in charge of army strategy was like asking a wild boar to play the harp."

"I mean...prejudice aside, I can see why they’d be skeptical." Cassius admitted with a slight laugh. "A brute-force fighter taking over high-level military logistics sounds like a disaster on paper."

"And that’s where everyone was dead wrong, Master!" Skadi shouted, stepping forward with her eyes shining.

"Big Sis didn’t throw a tantrum or run to the Patriarch to complain. She just stood there, listened to a thousand men insult her, and then made a single announcement."

Skadi mimicked a grand gesture, trying to make her voice sound deep and imposing.

"She looked at all thousand of them and said: ’If a single one of you can beat me in a duel, I will immediately resign, bow my head, and personally tell the Patriarch to make you the Supreme Commander instead.’"

Julie grinned, the memory clearly bringing her immense satisfaction.

"You can imagine how fast those arrogant veterans lined up. They thought it was free real estate! They were practically tripping over each other to be the first one to knock the ’little Ogre girl’ down so they could claim the commander’s seat for themselves."

"So." Cassius leaned forward, thoroughly hooked. "What happened?"

Aisha let out a throaty laugh.

"What happened? The dueling challenge lasted for seven straight days because every single man in the garrison demanded a turn to fight her!"

"And at the end of the seven days?" Cassius asked.

"Big Sis was the only one left standing." Aisha said smoothly, her voice rich with admiration.

"And she didn’t just beat them, Cassius." Her eyes gleamed with fire. "She utterly dismantled them!"

"She took those proud, arrogant squad leaders who thought they were gods of the battlefield and broke their spirits completely. She showed them what a real monster looked like!"

Julie added while feeling just as satisfied, "Day after day, warrior after warrior walked onto that field. And Big Sis Ragnora didn’t take breaks. She didn’t pause to sleep or eat."

"She just stood in the center of the ring and pulverized them one by one. She shattered their heavy armor with her bare palms, snapped their enchanted shields, and laid them out in the dirt."

"The funny part..." Skadi giggled, covering her mouth. "...is that the garrison had fought entire army raids with fewer casualties! In ten years of fighting bandits, those veterans never took as many broken bones and bruised egos as they did during that one week fighting Big Sis!"

"It was brutal!"

She clasped her hands together, hearts practically floating around her head.

"She’s just so cool!"

"The craziest thing was that she didn’t use any weapons at all."Julie said, shaking her head in disbelief even now. "She used her bare fists to break everyone down.

"And when your father asked her why she was doing that when she was perfectly capable of wielding a weapon, she just replied..."

Julie cleared her throat, adopting a completely flat, matter-of-fact tone,

"If I drew my blade, it would be too easy. I don’t want to break their spirits permanently."

Cassius burst into a genuine laugh, shaking his head. "Damn. That is a ridiculously arrogant line!"

"Except it wasn’t arrogant at all!" Aisha corrected quickly, leaning over the desk.

"That’s the thing about Big Sis Ragnora! She wasn’t gloating or acting smug. She didn’t mock a single person she fought."

"Every time she knocked a veteran out, she stayed calm, reached down, helped them up out of the dirt, and praised their martial spirit. She offered genuine compliments on their technique!"

Aisha’s eyes softened.

"So, when she said drawing her weapon would be too easy, she meant it as a literal, polite fact. She was holding back to spare their lives and dignity."

"That absolute composure..." She bit her lips in excitement. "...that terrifying power wrapped in humble grace impressed your father so much that he had her line transcribed into the estate’s official war chronicles."

"It’s literally quoted in plays across the continent now!"

Cassius thought about how in his previous world, a character would say a powerful line in a movie, and everyone would quote it for years.

But here, Ragnora had spoken such words into life, and they had been passed down for generations as legend.

He let out a deep sigh, genuinely impressed despite himself.

"That’s...actually remarkable."

"Oh, we’re barely getting started." Aisha said, practically bouncing like Skadi. "After that week, Big Sis became the undisputed commander of a thousand battle-hardened warriors!"

"No one could challenge her—the strongest had all fallen, and the weaker ones knew they stood no chance. But it wasn’t just fear or defeat that won their loyalty."

"It was respect." Julie said with conviction. "Yes, she was a woman. Yes, she was an ogre. Yes, she was young."

She smiled. "But she had proven, beyond any shadow of doubt, that those things meant nothing."

"She also wasn’t some simple-minded brute swinging wildly."

Aisha added, while thinking of everyone’s faces back then and went on to say,

"Every movement was calculated. Every word was deliberate. She had perfectly dismantled them without causing any permanent harm—a level of control that spoke to profound wisdom and battle mastery."

"By the seventh day." Skadi giggled as her tail wagged furiously. "Every single warrior of the brigade knelt before her and swore allegiance! Even the rival leaders who had spent years fighting each other for the right to command. They all set aside their pride. They had found someone worthy!"

"And on that day, she announced her name to the world." Aisha’s voice rang with triumph.

"She had also given the brigade its name too: the Blood and Iron Brigade. Named for the blood spilled by generations of warriors into the soil beneath their feet, and the iron forged from the very mines they protected—blood and iron, seeping together across centuries to create something unbreakable."

"The roar they let out when they heard that name." Julie said, shaking her head in wonder. "It was so loud they could hear it all the way here, in the main estate. A thousand voices, united for the first time in years."

Cassius sat back, genuinely stirred by the account.

He could have read reports—dry summaries of dates and outcomes.

But this...this was something else entirely.

He’d wanted to understand Ragnora as a person before he met her, and these stories painted a portrait more vivid than any document could capture.

"Okay, I’ll admit." Cassius said, leaning back with an appreciative grin. "That’s a pretty badass origin story. But what happened after? Did she just sit back and play the grand general?"

"Are you kidding?!" Aisha laughed out loud. "That was just day one! Right after taking command, she realized that even though these guys were strong, their fundamental techniques were full of bad habits passed down through generations."

"So she became their instructor!"

Cassius was thrown of pace. "An instructor? For veteran warriors who had been fighting their whole lives? What could she possibly teach them?"

"Everything!" Aisha beamed. "Big Sis Ragnora is a total combat prodigy! She can watch a master swordsman swing a blade once and instantly spot four fatal flaws in his stance."

"She started pulling squad leaders aside, tweaking their elbow angles, adjusting their footwork by an inch, changing their breathing patterns..."

"...and suddenly, warriors who had been stuck at a plateau for ten years were doubling their striking power overnight!"

"She worked herself to the bone." Julie added softly, her voice filled with deep respect. "She spent an entire month straight, day and night, personally re-training all one thousand soldiers individually."

"When her lieutenants begged her to rest so she wouldn’t collapse from exhaustion, she just shook her head and told them: ’Every second I spend refining your stance is a life saved on the battlefield tomorrow. I will not bury my soldiers because I was too lazy to teach them properly.’"

"So cool...Big Sis is just way too cool..." Skadi whimpered softly, clutching her hands together with faint heart-eyes.

Cassius smiled softly. A leader who carried the heavy weight of every single subordinate’s life on her own shoulders—that wasn’t just strength.

That was true nobility.

"In that single month." Julie noted. "The brigade’s overall combat efficiency shot up by at least twenty percent. The surrounding bandit syndicates and rival lords took one look at the new aura coming off the mining garrison and completely abandoned their plans to invade."

Cassius thought about this for a moment, then a slow smile spread across his face.

"You know, I did something similar back then."

"When I first met all of you, I beat you down in one day, and the next day I was going around teaching you swordsmanship."

All three of them remembered that day clearly.

It was also the first time they had properly witnessed Cassius’s depravity—when he was having fun with Avery right in front of them.

All three of them blushed, a look of fondness crossing their faces.

"So..." Cassius said, a gleam in his eye.

"Compared to me and her, who do you think is a better teacher when it comes to combat?"